DVDs, Yoga and Elliptical machines

This title reflects what I have been doing this week. It started Sunday afternoon, whilst I was watching telly. I had the sudden urge to do some yoga! Mind you, yoga is not really my thing. I have taken 1 class my entire life, but a long time ago, I did have a very good video (yes in the pre-dvd days) made by 2 Australian women that I used to use sometimes. However, I always felt that yoga was not really my 'thing', until this Sunday.
I have no idea where this urge came from, but I felt like stretching my muscles. So I found some poses specifically categorized as 'yoga for runners'on a great website iyogalife. I have managed to do these 3 times this week, and finally the connection between yoga and running, clicked. I felt challenged by the poses, as well as highly inflexible. I added in a few other poses I knew, and could feel the effect on my core when I tried holding them. Well yoga may not have been my 'thing' in the past, but I can see it growing on me very quickly!
The next thing I have been busy with this week, has been a dvd, namely Nell McAndrew's Ultimate Challenge. I bought this dvd when I was up at Oxford. Because I used to keep such crazy hours, often I would be stiff at 3am, after hours of reading or writing, so I would do this dvd. This is the great thing about dvds - you can do them anywhere, at anytime. I am not particularly crazy about fitness dvds, because often they are not challenging enough. This one is the exception. The guy leading the training, is ex-British army, so the format is quite snappy! Given that my struggles to get out of bed in the morning have continued, rather than going to work sans run, I have managed to do this video a few times this week. In the evening, I have gone down to the gym a few times too.
This brings me to the third point, elliptical machines. Rowing is huge in Oxford. I rowed for a bit when I first went up (as everyone does), but it requires huge demands on one's time - from getting down to the boathouse at 4am (in winter, in the dark), to workouts on rowing machines in the gym, to practices on the indoor rowing tanks (naturally all the other colleges used the tanks too, so if your turn was at an ungodly hour, you had to just suck it up and go). Anyway, I quite enjoy rowing machines, and before I got back into running, I used to do a lot of rowing, and elliptical. The great thing about rowing machines is that when there are 10 people rowing together, they push hard and there is no way you are going to stop even if your lungs seem to be bursting and everything is burning! My gym does not have one, and our apartment is too small for one, but that is something on my wish list.... So, rowing nostalgia apart, I have also been on the elliptical machine a few times this week and enjoyed it - without feeling that I 'should' be running instead.
In fact, running this weekend is going to be a 'treat'. The plan is 5 miles on Saturday, 10 miles on Sunday. In the meantime, strength training tomorrow morning, and yoga tomorrow evening.